Spare me more ’emancipation’

Sigh.

Sometimes, I get so frustrated by all this fake, politically correct ‘equality’ stuff that is really just another excuse for people with bad middot to start taking out their own issues and frustrations on everyone else.

Recently, I had to send another email around to Sassonmag.com writers, to remind them to please avoid any photos of ladies next to their pieces. This has been the policy of Sasson since its inception, just sometimes people forget, as people are wont to do, especially when swimming in the moral swamp of the internet.

There are a few reasons why I wanted to avoid pictures of ladies on Sasson. One of them is that I want it be an inclusive site for as many frum Jews as possible, and if there are photos of ladies on the site, that’s going to unnecessarily exclude a whole bunch of people.

It’s like having a ‘Badatz’ certification on your restaurant. If it’s ‘Badatz’, most people will eat there. If it doesn’t have a hechsher, most people who are interested in consuming kosher food simply won’t eat there. The same sort of idea applies to sites that are trying to cater to the orthodox community.

So, inclusivity is one reason why I don’t want pictures of ladies on Sasson.

But there’s another, much more important reason why I don’t want pictures there, or also here, on rivkalevy.com, which you can sum up like this:

Personally, I don’t want my photo everywhere.

Personally, I don’t want to be put under pressure to ‘wig up’ or slap on the make-up in order to be taken seriously as a writer. Personally, I don’t want my writing, my ideas, to be judged on how I look.

I want people to relate to my writing, not to my photograph, and in this image-gorged world, that is becoming an increasing rarity.

There’s something else, too.

Personally, I don’t want my husband looking at sites where all those gorgeous lipsticked women are showing their best side to the camera, while they give over their insights and Torah. Call me crazy! Call me idiotic! But I strongly prefer that my husband ‘relates’ to other women as little as possible.

There’s something else, too.

Personally, I don’t want my two teenage daughters to get sucked into that fake, false world of ‘appearance’, where the message they are getting 24/7 is that appearance is EVERYTHING.

If you’re fat, if you’re ugly, if you’re teeth stick out, if you have bad acne, or frizzy hair of a terrible dress sense – no-one is going to take you seriously, honey.

That’s the message the world of images gives women, especially young women.

And I’m so grateful that the world of Torah, the authentic, frum Jewish world, is giving out the opposite message:

That it’s the inside that counts.

That it’s the neshama that counts. That it’s not the packaging a person’s soul comes in that’s really important, but how that soul is acting, and what that soul is saying.

Sadly, there appear to be a whole bunch of apparently ‘frum’ women out there fighting to put all the focus on the outside, and on external appearances. These superficial ‘fighters for women’s freedom’ are trying to force women’s pictures into every single space under the guise of ‘equality’.

Now, I believe in the principle of free choice. You want to slap big, faux-glamorous pictures of yourself with your too-wide fake smile all over the place, please go right ahead. It’s a free country after all, and free choice is the whole reason God created us.

But I get extremely upset when these individuals try to force everyone else into following their dictates, with the same sort of ‘shaming’ and pressure tactics psychos of all stripes have been using online for two decades, now.

These people go on about how ‘unfair’ it is to women, to not have their images in frum publications. They go on about how ‘fanatical’ it is, and how ‘extreme’ it is, and how ‘backwards’ it is. They regret how ‘closed minded’ publications and institutions are that follow this policy, which smacks to them of – eek! – some sort of ‘ultra orthodox’ or chassidic mind control.

I’ve been pondering on all this OTT hysteria for a while, but after writing my post on BTs, I think I’ve got a bit more insight into what’s going on. From what I can see, all of the women (and PC men) clamoring for more women in frum publications are baal teshuvas.

They are people who left the secular world behind, and now seem to be kind of chafing at the restrictions that come as part and parcel of being an orthodox Jew. Instead of accepting that the fault, the issue, the problem is really with them, these people are trying to get past their discomfort by attempting to change the orthodox world to ‘fit’ with their own, still half-secular worldview.

In some ways, I understand it, at least a bit.

For a while there, I also bought into all those internet ‘experts’ telling me and everyone else who wants to listen that people relate more to an image, they trust you more when they see an image, they will buy more of your product, book more of your services if they can see you…

So says all the internet experts.

But God is totally out of the picture with this approach, and it’s just not going to lead to any real, or lasting blessings.

I learned this the hard way.

Two years ago when I published the Secret Diary, I managed to get an interview about the book into the Jewish Press. We were all set to go – when I got the bombshell request that I had to give them a couple of pictures of me, to go with the piece.

Can’t we just stick with the cover of the book?

I pleaded with them. After all, that cover had been so complicated to sort out, precisely because I was trying to avoid untznius images of women. But no, we couldn’t. And I’m sorry to tell you, my emuna wobbled and I gave in and sent them a couple of pictures.

You know what? I don’t think I sold as much as a single copy of the book, thanks to that interview. Nothing. Nada. Nega nega tory. And in the meantime, I don’t know what having those pictures ‘out there’ cost my neshama spiritually, but it definitely wasn’t worth it.

Thanks to all those ‘fighters for women’s freedom’ out there, who are increasingly making it impossible for frum women to participate in anything unless they are willing to be photographed publically, I wasn’t given a choice to not have any images next to my piece in the paper.

Way to go, sisters! Thanks so much for emancipating me like that!

Thanks to you and all your self-righteous outrage and politically-correct ‘piety’, I got stuck having to buy into the warped values and upside-down ‘equality’ of the world of images – that same world that bought us Harvey Weinstein, #Me Too, and an ongoing dumbing down of standards, morals, dress and behavior in the public arena.

Personally, I don’t want to look at pictures of women.

Personally, I don’t want my husband to look at pictures of women.

Personally, I don’t want my kids to be caught up in that world that degrades and downgrades women to just another ‘pretty face’ or piece of cleavage, or curly wig.

I want there to be a safe space, an alternative to the world of images.

Not everyone has to think the same way. Not everyone has to want pictures of women on their sites – even if they are women themselves, as I am.

And there are some very good reasons for that, including that God has put a whole bunch of rules in place for religious Jews that often seem to hold us back, or cause us some sort of material disadvantage, but which really only lead to tremendous blessings for us.

Those blessings are often hidden, and aren’t immediately obvious. That’s part of the test. But they are definitely there.

For example, my husband and I don’t have smart phones. Even though my children do, neither of them has internet access, and whatever they do have on there is also being filtered by Etrog. They basically use their phones for Whatsapp, pictures and music – that’s it.

Tell me, how many people have 18 year olds with smartphones who are completely disinterested in the world wide web, or 15 year olds with smartphones who don’t give a hoot about Instagram?

I know my mesirut nefesh to avoid smart phones is having some massive, positive repercussions on my family, even though it means I can’t film myself giving over ‘wisdom’ every five minutes, or thinly-disguised plugs for my books, to post up on Youtube and Instagram and Facebook.

Another thing: Baruch Hashem, my husband works as a lawyer, and I’m continually amazed at how God is sending him clients. My husband does no marketing, works afternoons only, as he learns in the morning, and doesn’t have Whatsapp. And yet, God is continually sending him more clients and good parnassa, BH.

Over the last few years, I honestly did have a few occasions when I felt that I was missing out on being able to publicise my work, my books, my ideas, to a wider audience because I couldn’t just video classes on Google hangouts and upload them to Youtube.

But you know what?

More and more, I’m starting to see what a blessing it is to be out of all that social media murk.

I’m seeing the toll it’s taking on people spiritually, I’m seeing how much of their soul, their values, their yiddishkeit, their connection to Hashem, they are really selling out, for precious little real return, appearances notwithstanding.

Reader Interactions

Comments

Bs”d
Oeff, you got me scared after your BT article that it will not stop there but start with’ glamour’ , Baruch Hashem, NOT!
Especialy because some of my family members read your site…one of the few moments i feel happy about that they are online…!
Thank you!

I think part of the reason so many of us keep so many of our religious struggles quiet is because we’re scared that other people will start judging us as not being ‘good enough’ Jews. But that can so easily lead to a place of being a phoney, God forbid.

In the BT post I wasn’t saying that being stuck in that low place is good or desirable. I was saying that often, this is where God chooses to put us – despite our best efforts. And if we find ourselves down there, then we certainly have a God-given job to do.

Rivka, after must living between gentiles for 40 years, and see all the dirt, beer people, with no manners at all, then x-tians focusing on getting my soul when comming to West Europe, communist to prison my soul in East Europe..BIG CHAOS in hearts, heads and streets of the world.
And seeing just 2 normal people as a couple=my parents (they where so different from all the other people, that i thinked they are aliens), i did not wanted to marry, nor have children. After reading the book of Harav Shalom Arush i got hope to find a man to marry that is not like an animal or dog.
I found…the prayers at HAARI, Rashbi….formed me a Baalei Tshuva husband.
So i came to a place of his…no eruv, no mikve for women, and all the religieous people there attending the BET Knesset without a Rabbi, just the self appointed rav heavily on weed, like all of the others.
My struggle?
To get out of there soon as possible or to escape by diyng…to see people pretending to learn from Rabeinu while sucking the Kdusha out of others was as experience from hell. Evil ones in Purim custom.
No one of them got a Rabbi, telling the words of ‘Rabbeinu’ that there is no Rabbi alive today that is ok…
The fact that they did not follow any halacha of yichud was the most scary.
The men will just appear in our in the middle of nowhere small place with or without my husband present.
To explain them about halachot yichud did not help, they won’t accept that.
At the end i lost a baby while 6 months pregnant and nearly died myself.
So i prayed for help…went to Rabbi Abuhatzeira for advice and blessing. The advice was to go out of the evil place and my husband will follow.
It happen exactly like that.
There are many things i did not know, like that BT hung on the other side after doing tshuva…i had no idea…
Have been in coma as a small kid i did not need any proove of Hashem, i just Knew HE IS, especially in the mountains high away from people…
To see all the beauty of the CREATION, i knew HIM.
I did not know the small ‘letters’ of Halachot, but the root, the core was there…
To want to be between my people after being so long in galut, it was hard to not to be safe again between BT that play with Halachot a big wrong game in that specific place.
I feel like a warrior and want to fight it, by seperating myself from them…
For woman it is specialy hard, for we must protect and keep the KDUSHA of our family. that’s what make us diferrent from the others.
Keeping the BRIT.
Keeping the HOUSE=HOME safe place where gentiles and their way of life cannot enter. Our small BET HA MIKDASH. if not…what’s the point???
I think every BT should and must firstfully learn Halachot Yichud and the importance of it. Without its just abusing the TORAH, the LIGHT. And know, that every Jewish man or woman is SEFER TORAH.
Then everyone must know that Rabbi Nachman will never ever agree that his students will use drugs while learning his way…
Then every BT should know that the Jewish home, the family, the wife and children are the cornerstone of being Jewish, not the friends. And before they marry, they must have a Rabbi to not to be able to be KOFFER or a evil one and pretend to serve Hashem.
That’s what i learned there in that evil place…Hashem was with me! I guess everyone get diferrent way of experience, everyone of us is one special piece of Hashem, no one is the same and that’s ok…i believe that all the experience we have is His experience too…He is your/my eyes, He is your/my ears..etc..
Hopefuly we are at the end to start new.
thank you Rivka!

You are making a lot of important points, Orna, but it’s also important to bear in mind that all people, not just Jews, are created in the image of God, and therefore deserve respect.

If a person acts like an animal, clearly they won’t get the respect that’s coming to someone who’s acting like a refined human being. But it’s very important that we Jews respect other people, as much as possible, especially if they genuinely are God-fearing.

Jews and gentiles are on different paths, and spiritually we have different souls and different jobs to do in the world. But God still cares for all of His creations, and a truly God-fearing non-Jew can still get to heaven, and can even be part of the world-to-come.

Bs”d
Very good point, Rivka. But what i stated above i mean that no one was a suited match for me because there where not Jews in my age where i was…and no, no way we even suppose to think to marry gentiles. I met people that where nice and sweet just because, without reason, and i am happy i met them! But how they where as couple, i do not know for sure and its not my busines. The Marriage of gentile its not what CHUPA is.
This is again about Kdusha, Schina…same as BET HA MIKDASH.
They don’t need a get or to greeve about Bet Ha Mikdash while marrying…when they divorse, sad but not like destroying Bet Ha Mikdash.
I hope this comment clear it up.
As for the comment of Yoseph, we do want pictures of Tzadikim to see, not the reshaiym.
A man is on the outside and his tikkun is outside. To make a living and support his family. To teach Torah to fellow Jews. So when we see the face of a Tzadik, that’s ok. Think about Rabbi Berland, Rav Kook, Rabbi Nir Ben Artzi… and the other 33 that are now in Israel! It is good for Am Israel to see the Kdusha in their faces! It gives hope and emuna!
Same as it was good for AM ISRAEL to see the face of Moshe Rabbeinu and Yehoshua Bin Nun.
None of anyone busines how their wifes look like! They are the treasure of the husband.

Doesn’t this argument push for getting rid of pictures of *all* people? Do you need to see the cut/color of a man’s beard and the shape of his hat to respect his ideas? Wouldn’t such things actually take away from what’s inside and make people admire the external and the choices around it?

If this were done, then there would be the added benefit of not alienating those who fear women are being *particularly* excluded from public spaces and activities through the absence of images. So then more types of people can feel included without making anybody feel unwelcome.

Of course, pictures *do* work – and it isn’t just about the physical. We are programmed to see and react to faces from our very first days. Perhaps pictures, particularly of faces but also of posture and activity, express not just physical appearance, but actual emotions and feelings and challenges. We see a lot in the eyes or the stance of another. The lack of the ability to read these queues is a pronounced challenge for those who don’t have it…

As I see it, a great portrait is not one of a beautiful or attractive person. A great portrait is one which expresses some essence of that person. So perhaps that is what people lament – not the loss of glamour or physical emphasis, but the loss of expression that even still photos can bring.

I can see justifying the absence of all pictures – although I do feel something important would be lost (as it often is in purely geometric Islamic art). But the particular loss of womens’ pictures disturbs me as a particular exclusion of women from public spaces and I think that is a loss for all involved. And should you suspect that women are uniquely qualified to fall under the trap of appearance, modern media ought to make clear that men are quite capable of being peacocks in their own right.

I think getting rid of pictures of men would be a fantastic idea, if that’s what it would take to make the point that the focus on appearances are often counter-productive.

But it’s also an undeniable fact that men (and probably also women) respond to pictures of men and women differently. The secular world cynically exploits partially-clothed women to sell a whole bunch of things because they know people are drawn to beauty.

This does happen with partially-clothed men too, in some circumstances, but much less, as men are typically less ‘beautiful’. So men are usually judged much more gently on their public appearance, as society is already trained to judge a man more by his personality / accomplishments than by his appearance.

Women are the ‘inner dimension’ spiritually, which is why emphasising the externality of women is so destructive.

So how is it that Artscroll and Feldheim used to publish pictures of rebbetzins ie Rabbi Moshe Feinsteins family.There is a famous picture of the home of the Chofetz Chaim and a blurred picture of his daughter that was photoshopped to remove her blurry image.I heard a story about Rav Chaim Kanievsky shlita when his Rabbetzin obm was niftar and they wanted to write a biography about her life -he wondered why they had published his picture but there were none of her. Nothing wrong with seeing a picture of a holy woman .
Young frum women need inspiration too.A holy woman has a holy face and leaves a strong impression.

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About Me

Rivka Levy is a Breslov writer who is trying not to go bonkers while she waits for Moshiach to show up. She's the author of The Secret Diary of a Jewish Housewife series, plus a bunch of other books like Talk To God and Fix Your Health, 49 Days, and Unlocking the Secret of the Erev Rav.